How to send mail from the command line?

Question

score 178 · Answer 1 · edited May 10 '18 at 06:09

Install ssmtp :
```
sudo apt-get install ssmtp
```
Edit the ssmtp config file:
```
gksu gedit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf
```

Append the following text:

root=username@gmail.com
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:465
rewriteDomain=gmail.com
AuthUser=username
AuthPass=password
FromLineOverride=YES
UseTLS=YES

Run ssmtp and provide the recipient email address:
```
ssmtp recepient_name@gmail.com
```

Provide the message details as follows:

To: recipient_name@gmail.com
From: username@gmail.com
Subject: Sent from a terminal!

Your content goes here. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing.
(Notice the blank space between the subject and the body.)

Press Ctrl + D to send.

You can also put the text in file and send it as follows:

ssmtp recipient_name@gmail.com < filename.txt

score 106 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 13 '15 at 01:00

Most of the time you shouldn't need to configure an SMTP server you can simply use mail from the commandline (if it's not already present, install with sudo apt-get install mailutils). (Or if you're on a server where sendmail is configured, etc)

marco@dagobah:~$ mail -v marco.ceppi.use@gmail.com
Subject: Hello World!
This is an email to myself.

Hope all is well.
.
Cc:

You terminate messages with a single . on line. That's when mail will prompt you for Cc: enter the information (or leave blank) and mail will then print out additional information on what it is attempting to do, as well as detailing the processing of connecting, transmitting, and receiving data from the mail server.

score 60 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 16 '23 at 08:07

apt-get install sendemail

usage:

sendemail -f fromuser@gmail.com -t touser@domain.com -u subject -m "message" -s smtp.gmail.com:587 -o tls=yes -xu gmailaccount@gmail.com -xp gmailpassword

If you don't want to specify your password in the command line (generally not a good thing to do), you can omit that parameter and sendemail will prompt you for the password... and display it on the screen, but at least it won't be in your command line history.

score 40 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 12 '10 at 20:46

40

Try to install The Mutt E-mail Client. Other option is using emacs with gnus. Others options available too... IMHO, you should use more details in your questions, or several different answers to your question you will receive :-)

answered Nov 12 '10 at 20:46

crncosta

2,869

score 27 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

27

You need an MTA to send mail. For this, use postfix:

sudo apt-get install postfix

To send email:

echo "test message" | mailx -s 'test subject' myemail@mydomain.com

HELP

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

1

answered Aug 10 '12 at 15:57

One Zero

27,761

score 23 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 12 '10 at 22:47

23

mpack is excellent commandline way of sending file attachments.

apt-get install mpack

usage:

mpack -s "file you wanted" ./data.pdf loser@supergoober.cn

answered Nov 12 '10 at 22:47

BozoJoe

331

MhdSyrwan · Answer 7 · 2015-12-28T08:28:34.633

17

Install the package sendmail then type

sendmail -t receiver@example

then write your email then press Ctrl+D

edited Dec 28 '15 at 08:28

answered Jul 03 '12 at 17:14

MhdSyrwan

311

score 11 · Answer 8 · edited Mar 21 '13 at 19:34

11

mail -s "subjet" -a "attchedfile_name" someone@dest_email.com

or

cat "afile" | mail -s "subject" someone@dest_email.com

edited Mar 21 '13 at 19:34

Eric Carvalho

55,453

answered Mar 21 '13 at 19:16

user142345

111

score 10 · Answer 9 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

You can send an email from the command line with TelNet or NetCat.

Everything is explained here.

hanoo@hp_laptop% nc 127.0.0.1 25
220 hp_laptop.localdomain ESMTP Postfix
EHLO man
250 hp_laptop.localdomain
MAIL FROM: <netcat@postfix.com>
250 2.1.0 Ok
RCPT TO: <target@host.com>
250 2.1.5 Ok
data
354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
This is the body of my mail,
this is the second line...
.
250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as 9C12E7F404

score 7 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 12 '10 at 21:21

If you try to send e-mail from a system, whitch does not run an own e-mail-server (i. e. desktop system), you need to install something like nullmailer or esmtp, which forward your local mail to a "real" mail server.

As command line tools you can install mail or mailx (packages mailutils, heirloom-mailx or bsd-mailx). If you need attachments try biabam.

score 6 · Answer 11 · edited Sep 30 '15 at 07:15

6

sudo apt-get install sharutils mailutils
uuencode filename filename | mail user@example.com

where filename is the same: it stands for input file and remote file.

edited Sep 30 '15 at 07:15

kos

41,268

answered Jan 10 '12 at 10:14

nisse

61

score 5 · Answer 12 · edited Apr 12 '15 at 05:02

5

I have never tried it but there is a mail command that can send mail. See man mail.

To test local email:

echo message | mail username@localhost

edited Apr 12 '15 at 05:02

answered Nov 12 '10 at 20:30

dv3500ea

37,734

score 3 · Answer 13 · answered May 01 '20 at 15:44

You can use cURL. Take a file like this:

From: Sunday <sunday@gmail.com>
To: Monday <monday@gmail.com>
Subject: Tuesday

Wednesday

and send it:

curl \
--netrc \
--mail-rcpt monday@gmail.com \
--upload-file a.txt \
smtps://smtp.gmail.com

https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps

score 2 · Answer 14 · edited Nov 07 '12 at 13:14

2

You can try this:

mail name@mailserver.com -s "Attached file" <<EOF                 
Hi

~| uuencode $HOME/filename.txt filename.txt

EOF

It works with GNU Mailutils, check the website for more information.

edited Nov 07 '12 at 13:14

Peachy

7,235
10
40
47

answered Apr 25 '12 at 18:19

Sharad

39

score 2 · Answer 15 · edited Jul 28 '17 at 09:14

Run:

sudo apt-get install ssmtp
sudo -H gedit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

The following needs to be added there:

# The user that gets all the mails (UID < 1000, usually the admin)
root=yourusernameofgmail@gmail.com

# The mail server (where the mail is sent to), both port 465 or 587 should be acceptable
# See also https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78799
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587

# The address where the mail appears to come from for user authentication.
rewriteDomain=gmail.com

# Use SSL/TLS before starting negotiation
UseTLS=Yes
UseSTARTTLS=Yes

# Username/Password
AuthUser=yourusernameofgmail
AuthPass=yourGmailPassowrd
AuthMethod=LOGIN

# Email 'From header's can override the default domain?
FromLineOverride=yes

Run:

sudo -H gedit /etc/ssmtp/revaliases

Enter there:

root:yourusernameofgmail@gmail.com:smtp.gmail.com:587

Enable "less secure apps" on Gmail:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?hl=en

Test it by running the following on terminal:

echo "Body of mail is abc" | mail -s "Subject is xyz" "someusername@gmail.com"`

score 1 · Answer 16 · edited Apr 17 '22 at 20:02

I want to add another quite simple yet interesting way to do, provided by AWS (link)

So, you need to prepare this text file, save it as input.txt. Please remember to change the values:

Replace example.com with your sending domain.
Replace Base64EncodedSMTPUserName with your base64-encoded SMTP username.
Replace Base64EncodedSMTPPassword with your base64-encoded SMTP password.
Replace sender@example.com with the email address you are sending from. This identity must be verified.

Replace recipient@example.com with the destination email address. If your Amazon SES account is still in the sandbox, this address must be verified.

EHLO example.com
AUTH LOGIN
Base64EncodedSMTPUserName
Base64EncodedSMTPPassword
MAIL FROM: sender@example.com
RCPT TO: recipient@example.com
DATA
From: Sender Name <sender@example.com>
To: recipient@example.com
Subject: Amazon SES SMTP Test
This message was sent using the Amazon SES SMTP interface.
.
QUIT

To send using explicit SSL over port 587 – Enter the following command:

openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -starttls smtp -connect smtp-server-endpoint:587 < input.txt

To send using implicit SSL over port 465 – Enter the following command:

openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -connect smtp-server-endpoint:465 < input.txt

Impatient SMTP servers

If you face Client host rejected: Improper use of SMTP command pipelining errors, try waiting for the responses:

openssl s_client -crlf -quiet -starttls smtp -connect smtp.example.com:587 < \
    <(
        echo "EHLO foo.tld"
        sleep 2
        echo "AUTH LOGIN"
        sleep 2
        echo "Base64EncodedSMTPUserName"
        sleep 2
        echo "Base64EncodedSMTPPassword"
        sleep 2
        echo "MAIL FROM: sender@example.com"
        sleep 2
        echo "RCPT TO: recipient@example.com"
        sleep 2
        echo "DATA"
        sleep 2
        echo "Sender Name <sender@example.com>"
        echo "recipient@example.com"
        echo "Subject: Test"
        echo ""
        echo "Lorem Ipsum"
        echo "."
        echo "QUIT"
    )

How to send mail from the command line?

16 Answers16

You can send an email from the command line with TelNet or NetCat.

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